Contests wear me out, and I don't have the competitive instinct for them anyway. The only ones I do occasionally have a go at are the CW ones because with phone, the repetitive nature of the contacts very quickly reaches a level of absurdity that drives me nuts. Even then, I only do them in order to put a few new countries in the log and not with any serious intent to win. Having said that, I did come first in my section in the ARRL 10-Meter contest a couple of years ago, but it was only because just a few other stations in my section submitted QRP CW logs

Building gear is fun though, and casually checking into my daily net. That's about it for me, ham radio-wise.EDIT - and updating my bog. I do enjoy sharing my construction exploits online.

(Apologies for the use of any jargon in this post. It feels a bit odd talking about amateur radio to a general audience.)

This reminds me of when I w@rked for Department of Communications in Canada and administered amateur radio exams. I am suprised suprised how many hams are on this board. Maybe I will string an antenna next spring.

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I'm not Walt, but I've had my share of dealing with dermatologists. Around here the dermatogists don't accept any insurance for office visits. They freeze suspicious spots routinely. You have to pay when services are rendered. They don't accept credit cards. It's not that bad. The charge for a full body exam and freezing 5 spots was $155 last month. I'm on traditional Medicare PPO. The doctor WILL file with Medicare and I will be reimbursed by Medicare eventually. The doctor will charge exactly what Medicare will pay. The closest dermatologists who accept Medicare assignment are much farther than I care to drive.

I'm scheduled for a biopsy and possible sugery on a suspicious spot in a couple of weeks. I assume Medicare will prepay when the hospital and surgeons became involved.

__________________Matthew 6:34 (KJV)Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

$10 copay, insurance covers the rest. I'll get a statement from BCBS later showing what the total bill was. At the moment I don't know. The policy covers a lot of preventative stuff like that to head off larger costs later.

The first week in October my laptop fried, so I bought a new one. The old one has been sitting here staring at me ever since.

So, today I satisfied myself that indeed it was so throughly fried that there is no sense in keeping it, and determined that it was time to put the poor device out of its misery, so to speak. I took it apart (fun!), and removed the hard drive for future destruction.

My new $450 Toshiba is fine for my purposes, I am OK with Window 8, and I do not need any lost files so all is well.

__________________Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities.

Why fill two 55 gal drums with water? Won't it freeze? I do all the other stuff winterizing my Mom's place.

My regular water storage tank is outside above ground, a 250 gallon tank. We already had several sub freezing temps overnight. When the tank is full it can ride out the overnight freezing temps with just a tarp covering it. Water is magic stuff, has enormous heat capacity.

Inside the building they will hold untill daytime temps drop into the low 30 ies and nightimes in in the low 20 ies a nd teens. That would be late December usually. By that time they will be used up for flushing toilet and washing hands etc.. Most folks seem unaware the toilets flushes use the most water next to showers in daily life. Hmmm. Maybe I should dig a hole for outhouse and do away with the toilet flushing business.

It is a camp, not a residence. I hang out there several days and ovenights a few days a week on and off. Once it gets really cold and the drums are emptied, I just walk to the creek 20 feet from the building and use a 5 gallon bucket to get water as needed, or hike up to the spring and get cleaner water, again as needed.

I do use the camp year around, adapting to the weather conditions as needed.

By the way my camp does not have a basement, If it did I'd likely be able to store water there, as sub surface areas generally stay just above freezing in my locale. Though would have to drain any piping before departure.

__________________
There must be moderation in everything, including moderation.

Went to church this morning, followed by lunch at our favorite Mexican restaurant and a matinee showing of Captain Phillips at the movie theatre. The young wife made clay pot roasted chicken with rice and greens for dinner.

We had an exciting day. I was outside doing some woodworking, and DW came out to say hi and ended up spending a while pulling weeds. A few seconds after she went back inside she stared yelling "something's on fire!" I ran in (probably more a lumber than a run, but the best I could do) and we found out she had left some lentils on the stove. It was really smoky, but no danger. We were wondering why the smoke detectors didn't come on, but then they did. So we've got a pretty good idea of the level of smoke required to set them off. Luckily the temp was decent (mid-60s) since we had to open all the windows and doors.

So later in the evening we're sitting in the family room with the dogs watching The Walking Dead. It's the dogs' favorite show. Anyway, we're sitting there and all of the sudden there's a huge CRASH!. We jump up and wander around looking to see what happened, and there's our foyer chandelier on the floor. It's been there almost 6 years, and we seldom even turn it on. No explanation, although it looks like the little finial that screws into the nipple hanging from the box might have split. But I can't get up there (20' up) to look at the box.

So far, the rest of the evening has been pretty quiet. We'll talk to the electricians who installed it tomorrow. I suspect they'll (probably rightly) blame it on the manufacturer. But we'll need their statement before we go to the people that sold it to us. Fun, fun, fun. But at least nobody was standing under it when it fell. I can't believe some of the sconces didn't even break. It must have dropped 15 feet.

Yesterday was a lucky day. Bears won. Blackhawks won. And we dodged a tornado. Some high winds, hail, power outage, and today now without phone, internet and cable. But we're a lot more fortunate than a lot of people around here.

DW and I joined a gym that is affiliated with the nearby hospital. I noticed that other than staff at 11:00 not a soul in there was under 40, most well north of 50.

That's exactly like my gym, and I love it! The other members are so nice and considerate, and I can lift more weight than most of them so that helps me to feel successful. Other than old people, my gym also allows free membership for firemen. When the firemen show up I can watch some pretty inspiring physical feats.

Also, when I fainted and knocked myself out a few weeks ago, you should have seen the response! Being associated with the hospital means that they REALLY know what to do in an emergency, and they do it fast. I think the trainers may have all had paramedic training, or at least were taught what to do. I appreciate that more the older I get.

__________________Already we are boldly launched upon the deep; but soon we shall be lost in its unshored, harbourless immensities.

I am suprised suprised how many hams are on this board. Maybe I will string an antenna next spring.

You and me both.
We had three trees that needed to come down this fall, so that was the end of my HF antenna.

Still thinking about what will replace it. I'm leaning toward a multi-band trap vertical, but we still have a lot of trees and my off-center fed dipole worked pretty well for me. DW is not ready for a tower and yagi.

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